Alleged failure to provide DNA leads to 10 arrests

October 17, 2013

GLEN - The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has charged 10 people with failing to turn over their DNA.

According to a news release from the department, the arrests were made over the last six months. The people were charged with second-degree criminal contempt for failing to turn over their DNA after being found guilty of a misdemeanor or higher-level crime, the news release said.

Undersheriff Jeffery T. Smith said New York's DNA databank legislation requires that anyone convicted of a misdemeanor or felony after Aug. 1, 2012, must turn over a sample of their DNA to authorities to go into the New York State DNA Databank.

The law, which went into effect in August 2012, expanded the DNA databank.

Smith said the department began to charge people for non-compliance in April.

According to a news release from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office, taking a DNA sample is not an invasive process. A convicted offender's DNA is taken from the inside of their cheek with a swab.

The New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center uses an automated process to convert that material into a numerical profile that is unique to that offender.

The profile is only used to match convicted offenders to evidence found at a crime scene and link crimes that may involve the same perpetrator.

The profile cannot be used for any other purpose because the DNA is extracted from locations on the strand that cannot identify the person's race, appearance, health or behavior, according to the governor's office.

New York is the first "all crimes DNA" state in the nation, according to the governor's office.

The law includes expanded access to databank comparisons for certain criminal defendants, allowing them to obtain DNA testing before trial or after a guilty plea to show their innocence. In addition, the law provides for greater access to discovery of evidence after a conviction where innocence is claimed, according to the news release from the governor's office.